And how PCI DSS compliance can help businesses get proactive in protecting their checkout pages.
Just how detrimental are cyber attacks and breaches to an ecommerce business? The answer is virtually unquantifiable. Aside from the sheer monetary loss — response and recovery costs, customer churn (as high as 7%), fines and penalties, lawsuits, etc. — the damage a high-profile hack may cause to a company’s reputation can become irreversible.
In the past 10 years, ecommerce businesses have faced an increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threat in the form of Magecart attacks — malicious campaigns that inject harmful JavaScript into checkout pages to steal payment details and other valuable personal information (e.g., contact info, user names, passwords). These attacks have affected major brands (Amazon, British Airways, Ticketmaster), costing millions, and remain a major threat to digital businesses of all shapes and sizes.
While Magecart can directly infect a website’s infrastructure by exploiting certain vulnerabilities, it is commonly categorized as a supply chain attack, in that a malicious actor compromises a business’s network by infiltrating third-party vendors or applications. (One of those vendors, an ecommerce platform called Magento that provides shopping cart functionality for retail, is how the name Magecart was derived.)
For Magecart malware specifically, the attack surface is the checkout page or payment form of your ecommerce site. Unlike traditional data breaches that compromise backend databases, Magecart operates in real-time, stealing payment details the moment a customer enters them. Magecart essentially acts as a digital credit card skimmer, harvesting your information and sending it directly to the attacker’s server, email, or other destination.
Since modern ecommerce sites rely on third-party services for expanded payment options, analytics, chat assistance, social sharing, etc., they are, in effect, creating multiple entry points for attackers. If just one of these services is compromised — even a single piece of code — it can trigger a cascading effect, infecting multiple sites and exposing thousands of transactions.
According to a Risk IQ report, a Magecart attack is attempted once every 16 minutes.
Unlike traditional data breaches that compromise backend databases, Magecart attacks target client-side code (i.e., within the browser) through obfuscation techniques, meaning malicious code is hidden among legit JavaScript frameworks on user interfaces. As a result, the malware cannot be detected by web application firewalls (WAFs), and businesses only become aware of a breach after it’s reported by a customer.
Considering 98.9% of websites use JavaScript for client-side programming language, hackers have endless routes to corrupt ecommerce sites proliferated by third-party vendors. Still, not all applications are created equal, especially in the eyes of malicious intruders. Magecart attacks will typically target the most outdated and vulnerable lines of code, meaning a proactive approach is necessary across the board — especially when it comes to assessing third-party risk.
How to protect your business from Magecart
There’s a multitude of ways ecommerce businesses can protect their checkout experiences from the vulnerabilities sought out by Magecart attackers. As noted above, it’s important to make sure not just your internal architecture is monitored and inspected, but also that of the third-party applications running on your site.
One of the best ways to holistically address these concerns is ensuring strict adherence to PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance regulations. The latest version, PCI DSS 4.0, has two specific mandates — 6.4.3 and 11.6.1 — that emphasize the need to protect your clients (and your business) from malicious attacks at the point of sale.
PCI DSS 6.4.3 - Requires organizations to manage payment page scripts loaded and executed in the consumer’s browser by confirming authorization, ensuring integrity, and maintaining inventory justifications for each script.
PCI DSS 11.6.1 - Requires organizations to implement and maintain change-and tamper-detection mechanisms to alert personnel about unauthorized modifications to HTTP headers and payment page content.
In response to evolving threats like Magecart, security-conscious companies are deploying advanced protection solutions to safeguard their checkout processes. Cleverbridge ensures that our checkout pages remain free from credit card skimming by leveraging security solutions such as JScrambler. By utilizing multiple layers of protection — including code obfuscation, runtime defenses, and integrity checks — we ensure your customer data stays protected at all times.
Bottom Line
While compliance with PCI DSS 4.0 is a necessary step for ecommerce companies, it’s the businesses that take proactive security measures beyond minimum requirements who will be best positioned to protect their customers (and reputations) in the long run. By staying ahead of emerging threats, Cleverbridge ensures a more secure and trustworthy checkout experience for our clients and their customers alike.
Want to learn more about how Cleverbridge is safeguarding the point of sale with the latest technology and compliance standards? Book a demo today.